Reaching Grand Junction quite a chore for Pioneers

SMC's baseball team, on its way to Colorado for the junior college World Series, had a busy travel day on Tuesday.

By TODD SHANESYtodd.shanesy@shj.com

DENVER — Spartanburg Methodist College baseball coach Tim Wallace was in his office early Tuesday morning, working on his computer, when he lifted his head and looked around at the walls.“I'm going to have to clear some space for a new poster,” he said.Wallace has souvenir framed posters for every time he has led SMC to the junior college World Series in Grand Junction, Colo., and, quite frankly, the room is getting a little cluttered. The Pioneers have been there five times since 2001 and are headed out there again.There was a quick turnaround, just one day, between coming home from the NJCAA Eastern District championship game, a 17-2 mauling of Potomac State on its home field in West Virginia, and leaving for Colorado. But Wallace and the SMC staffers have done this before.All the equipment — bats, balls, athletic training supplies and everything else — was boxed up and shipped out Monday morning (for nearly $3,500) and, with any luck, will be waiting for the team in Grand Junction. Players started arriving in the gym at about 8:30 a.m. for the scheduled departure half an hour later. Tuesday was the main part of the trip, busing to Atlanta and flying to Denver. Scheduled departure was 9 a.m. sharp from the SMC parking lot.At 9, luggage was stored underneath and players were in their seats, ready to go. Bags of chicken biscuits were passed around, along with orange juice and water, and the MLB Network was on the satellite television, showing highlights of last night's big-league games.But somebody was missing.Freshman outfielder Preston Fry, in his haste to reach the bus on time, was pulled over for speeding on Powell Mill Road near the college. So there was a bit of a delay, but only a few minutes, and Fry successfully explained to the nice officer that there was a good excuse for having a lead foot.Only a few miles down the road, not even to I-85, Wallace did a phone interview for a sports radio station out in Grand Junction. This tournament is a huge deal out there. Four days before the scheduled start, the hype machine was in full gear. Wallace talked to the host as if they were old friends and, in fact, they have gotten to know each other quite well in the past decade.Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport was even more impossibly crowded and frustratingly snail-like than usual. The lines to get to security checks snaked endlessly and through a series of confusing mazes, some of which were dead ends, like corn fields at Halloween festivals.By this time, people were starting to notice these guys were a baseball team. Perhaps the most obvious clue was that some of them carried their gloves and did not put them in backpacks or suitcases for fear of the gloves being smashed out of shape. One woman looked puzzled by the smaller-sized gloves that a couple of the pitchers had.“Are those real gloves or toys?” she said. “They're so tiny.”SMC closer Cody Mincey, who needs a glove only big enough to hide the grip on the ball he throws to strike out batters, just shook his head.“That ain't right,” he said. “That just ain't right.”As everybody got through the other side of the security scanners and put their shoes back on and looped their belts again, lunch was handed out. Each player got a boxed lunch that was actually bought in Spartanburg, along with the breakfast biscuits, and saved for later. Big bags of turkey sandwiches, chips and cookies passed through security with no problem.You have to take a subway to your terminal and those trains were already packed to the max when SMC's entire team tried to squeeze in. Remarkably, the Pioneers fit. They couldn't move, but they fit. The automatic doors shut on two players, but eventually, they fit.As you can tell, getting to Grand Junction on the field is one thing and actually getting there is a feat nearly as impressive. SMC's events and budget manager, Sherry Collins, planned everything expertly.The team had to be split into three different flights. There was just no way to get everyone on one bird. Wallace took one group to Denver through San Antonio. Assistant coach Matt Williams took another through St. Louis. Athletics trainer Tiffany Walker took a third through Kansas City.Third baseman Elliott Caldwell, in the third group, stepped off the train and jokingly told Wallace how much he would miss his favorite player for the rest of the trip.“Can clean-up hitters get lost like luggage?” Wallace wondered aloud.Hopefully not, because Wallace did not put one of those tags on Elliott so he could be returned in the misfortunate event that he did not show up with the others.Wallace's group was the last one off the train and after everybody squeezed back out the same way they squeezed in, there was one problem.Somebody was missing again.Yes, Dylan Rogers, a freshman pitcher from Union County High School, a young man who had never been on an airplane, was not there.“I don't think he could get off the train,” somebody said.Well, there was nothing to do but have a few people stake out different posts along the Terminal D exits and hope that Rogers knew he was supposed to get off and could make it back to that spot. Thankfully, he was on the next train that pulled up. He had never gotten on the last one. The entire crowd had pushed its way on board and the only one left outside the doors was Rogers.“They don't have trains like this in Union County, do they?” Wallace said.Collins' battle plan worked to perfection and all three groups — San Antonio, St. Louis and Kansas City — met at the same baggage claim area in Denver in a 20-minute span. In another few minutes, a bus pulled up to take SMC's team to the hotel.In a past life, Collins was a four-star general.Wednesday morning is the second leg of the trip, a four-and-a-half hour bus ride through the Rocky Mountains to Grand Junction.